The police in Ogun State have arrested two persons suspected to be members of a gang of one-chance robbers in the Ewekoro Local Government Area of the state.
One-chance robbers are criminals who operate with a vehicle, disguise themselves as drivers and passengers and pick up unsuspecting passengers whom they forcibly rob of their belongings.
The police said the suspects, identified as Aliu Oyetola, aged 35, and 40-year-old Seyi Afolabi, were members of a four-man gang of ‘one-chance robbers’ terrorising residents of Sango Ota and its environs.
Oyetola and Afolabi were said to have been arrested by the policemen attached to Sango Ota while on routine patrol around Itori, the headquarters of Ewekoro on Thursday.
The police were said to have been on the trail of the gang after a victim reported how she was robbed on March 23, 2024, by the suspects, losing over N320,000 to the terrible experience.
The spokesman of the state police command, SP Omolola Odutola, who disclosed this in a statement on Friday, said, “The victim boarded a Toyota Corolla taxi at Ijako market, going to Itori, with four men who surreptitiously posed as fellow passengers in the said taxi.
“While on the way, the said men robbed the victim of her valuables, by forcibly dispossessing her of her smartphone valued at N85,000, a cash sum of N123,000, and a separate cash sum of N105,000 and subsequently pushed her out of the car and fled.
“Acting on the report, the DPO Sango Ota Division gave his surveillance team a matching order to be on the lookout, and unravel the perpetrators of the crime.”
She explained further that on March 28, 2024, while the police were on surveillance on Itori road, a Toyota Corolla which the gang usually used to operate was approaching the police but it suddenly stopped and the occupants fled in different directions.
The policemen were, however, said to have given them “a hot chase and succeeded in arresting Oyetola and Afolabi, while a blue Toyota Corolla marked, GGE 659 FR, was recovered.
They were also said to have made confessional statements that would lead to the arrest of the fleeing gang members.
Credit: Punch newspaper
